If You Invested $1,000 in Gold 10 Years Ago, How Much Would You Have Today?

When you think of buying gold, you may envision physical gold bars stacked in a safe just begging for a heist. However, whether you are looking to buy or sell gold product, it can be quite a lucrative long-term investment.

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Like most market-based investments, the price of gold gyrates in all directions. So how has it performed over the last ten years? If you invested $1,000 in gold a decade ago, how much would it be worth today? Let’s find out.

Ten years ago, the price of gold had an average closing price of $1,158.86 per ounce. Today, it’s worth about $2,744.67 per ounce. That marks a 136% increase in value, or an average annual return of 13.6% (not calculated for compounding interest).

By that assessment, if you had invested $1,000 in gold a decade ago, it would be worth approximately $2,360 today. That’s a solid return. However, how does it compare to, say, an investment in stocks?

The S&P 500 rose 174.05% over the last ten years, for an average annual return of 17.41%. And that doesn’t even include its dividend yield over that time. Consider too that as volatile as the S&P 500 is, gold’s returns have varied even more in modern history.

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When Richard Nixon severed the dollar from gold backing in 1971, the price of gold suddenly started floating at market rates. It consequently skyrocketed over the rest of the 1970s, delivering an average annual return of 40.2%. Then the 1980s arrived and the gold party screeched to a halt. From 1980 through the end of 2023, gold notched an average annual return of just 4.4%. Gold lost value in most years in the 1990s, for example.

Gold doesn’t work like other investments. Traditional investments like stocks and real estate work because they generate revenue. Investors measure that revenue, assess the likelihood of future revenue growth, and put a value on the investment based on it.

Gold doesn’t produce revenue. In fact, it doesn’t “do” anything. It sits there and looks pretty. This may not mean much when the rest of the economy hums along healthily, but it can become plenty meaningful when a wrench gets thrown in the gears.

Many investors consider varying amounts of gold the ultimate safe haven investment. When “the world goes to hell in a handbasket,” investors can buy gold in the form of gold coins, gold ETFs and more on the gold market.